Who said &quot;without slavery, there wood be no need for mechanization&quot;?

Answers

"Without slavery you have no cotton; without cotton you have no modern industry."
Karl Marx: The Poverty of Philosophy (1847)

This statement is sometimes quoted out of context to make it seem as if Marx was here arguing for the "good side of slavery", rather than mocking the views and arguments he wrongly attributes to French anarchist Proudhon.

Machines can make free labor more efficient - think of the cotton gin. But mechanization also eliminates labor entirely, and as more and more robots do our work, the working class is going to become obsolete, slave or free.